


she doesn't mind the mess i am

by orphan_account



Series: are we made of moments or something more [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 01:43:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15208109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: He'll always be Frank Castle, husband or not, father or not, Punisher or not.(Part of Karen's life or not.)Post Punisher season 1.





	she doesn't mind the mess i am

**Author's Note:**

> This story kinda takes place at the same time as my fic 'he and I don't mind the blood' and I so I guess this is sort of a sequel? I made it into a series instead of a multi-chapter fic bc I don't know what I'm doing yet. 
> 
> Please comment if you like it!

It's raining when Frank crosses the Seattle city limit. 

 

Maria didn't like when it rained. She didn't like the way it made the pavement smell, the way it frizzled her hair, or the way it generally darkened the world around her. Now that she's gone, Frank feels obligated to dislike it in her place - except he goes the extra mile and full out hates it. Hates the way it splashes under his boots and blurs his sight and reminds him of everything that's terrible.

(No, he's not dramatic.) 

 

Focus.

 

Within the next half hour, Andrew McCall will be dead, as soon as he walks through Sabrina Hernandez's front door, into Room 603A in the second building in the SunnySide apartment complex. The name is ironic. He doubts that it's ever seen the sun. Regardless, Andrew will never see it again - that's a promise Frank made to himself and three headstones before he walked away from Hell’s Kitchen to finish the business that Daredevil and Wilson Fisk and the district attorney so rudely interrupted.

 

But he's refocused, reinvigorated, and in Seattle. He's never liked the west coast much, but tracking asshole scumbags tends to take you to all kinds of new and exciting places that you will inevitably hate. Places where the clouds don't fucking run out of water.

 

He waits on an empty rooftop, sight aligned and finger tapping expectantly against the trigger guard. 

 

The rain slows to a drizzle. 

 

Nine minutes and fourteen seconds later, Andrew McCall is lying dead on Sabrina Hernandez's floor. Frank is almost sorry that he left her such a mess, but really, he's not. 

 

Not after the mess her lover left him.

 

It's still raining when he leaves Seattle behind him. 

  
  


******

  
  


He shoots a man from across the United States-Mexico border and briefly wonders if Karen Page would be impressed or disgusted.

 

If she’d be assured that he didn't lie when he told her  _ you were safe,  _ or if she'd feel more endangered than ever. 

 

Then he remembers not to think about Karen Page and the way her morality seems written in sand, a work in progress that changes with the tide. (When the tide is the truth.) (It's kind of like his, but not like his at all.)

 

He's not here for her. He's here for Maria, for Lisa, for Frank Jr. And he's willing to admit that he's here for himself, too. He's here for Frank Castle, for the Punisher. 

 

He's not trying to clean up the streets or make the world a better place. He's not trying to make anybody happy and he's definitely not trying to please Karen fucking Page just because she did what any smart, decent person should and looked past government sanctioned bullshit, and it happened to work out (sort of) in his favor.

 

It's not about those things. It isn't even about avenging the death of his wife (his soulmate, his fucking goddess who graced him with her love) or his girl and boy (his rays of sunshine, the only magic he ever believed in). You can't avenge something that beautiful with something as ugly as what he does - in fact, he's pretty sure you can't avenge something that beautiful at all.

 

In a sense, it's about balancing out the universe’s mistake - taking the lives that took his. It's what the “justice" system wouldn't provide. It's an approximation of fairness, not quite the thing (what is fair when he's lost everything?). 

 

_ So no, Frank, you don't care what Karen would fucking think about all this.  _

 

(He really does, though. Hidden behind all the rage and blood and loss, Karen Page is on his mind.) 

  
  


******

  
  


He met Maria on a Tuesday afternoon. The park was empty when he sat down under a tree and pulled out his guitar, and he thought he preferred it that way.

 

Until her. 

  
  


******

  
  


Peoria, Arizona isn't much better than Seattle. The sun is relentless and Frank isn't much into restrictive headwear. But he doesn't really tan, he just burns and then his skin peels off and then he's still white as ever. Then he burns again. 

 

Not that you can tell through the bruises.

 

So he does his deal and gets the hell out, working his way back east until he can simultaneously experience sunshine and a cool breeze. He wonders if this is what it's like to miss home when home becomes a place instead of a family.

 

_ Hell's Kitchen isn't home. _

 

_ Maria. Maria is home. You told her so.  _

 

That's right. 

 

Home is dead, buried, sealed with a gravestone. 

 

Frank figures he's lucky to have somewhere to go back to, even if home is gone. 

  
  


******

  
  


It's not long before Frank's hit list is nothing but crossed out names of dead men. 

 

He doesn't let himself think about her often. Not even when he's back in Hell's Kitchen and all he's left with are loose ends and he's about to call it quits on the punishment and surrender to a life of construction.

 

But something about her demands to be thought of. 

 

Not Maria. The other her. The alive one. 

 

The one named Karen, who he didn't meet on a Tuesday in the park (their first glimpse of each other involved him shooting at her asshole client and chasing them through a hospital). The only her who has dared to matter to him since Maria. 

 

He wonders if she hates him, or if she thinks of him at all. 

  
  


******

  
  


The construction business serves him well. He takes his rage out on old sheetrock and LVLs, trades his guns in for hammers and works as many hours as the contractor will allow. 

 

It works. It really does. He's miserable as ever but he's not killing anyone and he's not driving himself mad searching for the last shreds of corruption surrounding the night he should have died.

 

His coworkers range from not problematic to very problematic, but even worst ones pale in comparison to the being tortured by an Irish mobster whose son you killed or running headlong into a bullet storm with no backup to secure a landing zone. All things considered, he can handle a few obnoxious assclowns who drink a few too many beers before work. 

 

Life is still comprised of destroying things and missing people, all that's changed is the setting. 

 

(And that there's an extra person to miss these days, who's very much alive and whose name keeps popping up on the front page.) 

 

For a few decent moments, it looks like this could be the new norm for Frank Castle. He's okay with it. He's damn near comfortable. 

 

Then.

 

Then Donny happens. Donny who won't leave him alone, who makes the stupid ass decision to try to befriend him, who sits in silence beside him and shares his sandwiches with him and is generally a good human being. And while Frank doesn't crank up the amiability to reward Donny's efforts, he does like the kid.

 

Likes him enough to save his ass when he gets involved with the wrong people, the ones Frank knew were trouble from day one when they opted out of minding their own fucking business. He beats them and throws them into a vat of liquid concrete meant for Donny and he walks away without checking the kid over for bruises, without word or warning, and doesn't come back.

 

It's okay, he thinks, he’ll find another under the radar job like this one to pass the time and resume living peaceably in a shitty one room apartment. He has options.

  
  


******

  
  


The universe must have it out for him. 

 

He's got a stalker and his hard earned status of deceased is at risk. 

 

Fucking creep calls himself Micro like it's cool or something and Frank already hates him. Yet another agent of karma, sent to screw up everything he's achieved (not that he's achieved anything particularly wonderful, but he does appreciate not having to run from the feds anymore since they think he's dead and have devoted their time to other forms of corruption). 

 

He's probably going to kill this Micro character. But not until he thanks him for the excuse to pay one Karen Page a visit. 

  
  


******

  
  


He goes to Karen about the Micro issue, and she tells him she'll look into it. That's after she takes him to her apartment and before she throws herself into his arms after carefully maintaining a safe radius for the entirety of his visit.

 

There are tears in her eyes and she says it's really good to see him

 

He says it's really good to see her, too.

 

It's a shame she's probably not into murdering and vendettas - he has a feeling his punishing days aren't over.

 

It's also a relief, because if she were, he'd be fucked. He'd actually have to choose between the dead and the alive, start calling Maria his dead wife instead of just his wife, come to terms with how insane he is and with the end of the world. 

 

(He thinks he could do it. But he won't find out unless Karen Page looks into his eyes and tells him to.) 

  
  


******

  
  


He doesn't kill Micro. Because Micro is just a smart guy named David who was also screwed over by suits in high places, who has lost his family in an entirely different way than Frank has, but who's hurting all the same. 

 

They become friendly hostiles or hostile friends, and there's a difference but Frank's not sure which label is more accurate. Regardless, they have shared interests and generally what helps one helps the other. It works, sort of. 

  
  


******

  
  


Maria, Karen, and now Sarah. 

 

How many women will the universe send to fuck him up before he goes insane? 

 

Maria. His wife. His  _ dead  _ wife. His  _ murdered  _ wife. Who ripped his heart out every fucking day even when there were oceans between them, who asked him all the hard questions and loved him no matter the answer, whose eyes were always so soft and forgiving and hopeful. 

She made him want to experience life, made him remember that there's more than survival and instinct and winning. She gave him a beautiful girl and boy, filled his life with reasons to come home. 

Karen. His friend. His friend who he wants to hold in his arms while he pours out his soul to her. Who deals in truth and respects his dark honesty more than Matt's white lies, who makes him feel like his life is a tragedy and not a horror story.

 

She tells him things he doesn't want to hear, like  _ I care about what happens to you  _ and  _ it's just really good to see you  _ and makes him feel things that he almost feels guilty for feeling. 

 

Sarah. David's wife who thinks that her husband has been dead for a year. David's wife who he wasn't trying to befriend but it just kind of happened and now David is sending Frank over to the house that used to be his and his wife is looking at him like he's a godsend and maybe something more.

 

She kisses him and Frank freezes and maybe he doesn't pull back as fast as he should but at least he does, but now everything's fucked up even more and he doesn't know how someone as stupid and emotionally constipated as he is can have any women to account for, much less three. (Maria still counts. She'll always count.)

 

David says it's okay, but it's not.

 

Sarah says she understands, but Frank doesn't think she truly does. How can she when she barely knows anything at all? 

 

(What Frank doesn't understand, what he refuses to admit makes sense, is that when Sarah kisses him, he doesn't think of Maria or even David. He thinks of Karen.)

  
  


******

  
  


Somehow life continues without changing all that much even though every other day it feels like Frank's world is being knocked off its axis. 

 

Things with Sarah are fine, she’s a strong, mature woman who's been through much worse than polite rejection. David's doing an excellent job of pretending his wife didn't catch feelings for the only person he’s stuck seeing on a regular basis (his initial outburst being the exception). 

 

Things with Karen are - 

 

_ “This bomber is intent on spreading fear, but I'm not scared.” _

 

\- not fucking good. 

  
  


******

  
  


Karen's hand finally grasps the right wire and he nods almost imperceptibly and he thanks God for the millionth time in that awful minute that he made her so fucking capable. 

 

Thanks God that she's a realist there's a gun inside her handbag instead of an essay about the ethics of righteousness. 

 

He thanks God that for everything that is Karen Page and that she won't go down without a fight - hell, she won't go down at all. 

 

Then his moment of clarity fades and more shit happens and bombs go off and a kid who never should have gone to war explodes at his own hands, lies are told and the only moments that are clearly imprinted in his mind are when Karen tells him to put a gun under her chin and get the hell out and when they touch foreheads in the elevator and say goodbye without saying goodbye. 

 

The day is a mess, it's a shitshow, but Karen walks away with no more than a few scratches and he calls that a win. 

  
  


******

  
  


David grills him about her. About the pretty blonde reporter (“Journalist,” Frank corrects under his breath) who suddenly, out of the blue, totally is somehow important. 

 

He thought he'd explained it earlier, when he said Karen was family and that if anything ever happened to her... But apparently Micro the Genius needs help with this one. 

 

“She helps me.”

 

“So why doesn't she work with us?”

 

“Like you'd just let her come on in and know about all your little secrets just ‘cause I say she helps.”

 

Silence. Blissful silence. Then.

 

“You like her.” 

 

My wife is dead. 

 

“A lot, too.”

 

Am I even allowed to, David? Is  _ Sarah _ allowed to? 

 

“Don't kill me, but if you've found someone who doesn't think you're the absolute worst, you ought to go for that. Leap for it.” 

 

Frank grits his teeth. Grinds them. Stares holes into David's forehead. “Yeah. I did that once before. Married her. Had two kids with her. Takes a little fucking time to  _ leap  _ into round two.” 

 

David doesn't bring Karen up after that. Not often, anyway. 

 

The thing is, he really likes Karen. More than it's normal to like someone he sees so irregularly and during such high stress situations. Right now he's in a good place, he has enough willpower to keep distance between them and he's even managed to keep his imagination in check. 

 

Sure, he’s thought about her like  _ that _ . She's attractive and he's attracted, and if he's honest, it's not the sexual thoughts that make him feel guilty. If you water it down, it's biology. 

 

But domesticity. The white picket fence and late night ice cream runs and time spent in bed  _ not  _ fucking and maybe, just maybe wedding rings and discussing baby names. 

 

That shit is off limits.

 

Because he can't have it. His wife is dead, hell, on paper he's even dead (although not for long, thanks to Lewis's stunt and the media's persistent video coverage). He already lived that life, played the role of husband and father and lived in a white house with shutters and read rhyming books to his kids on nights when he wasn't deployed. He's had a wedding in a church with a steeple and sat at the DMV for hours on end and grilled burgers in the backyard on the 4th of July. He had his happy life, and it was taken away. 

 

And he's not trying to be dramatic or sentimental or whatever, but it really doesn't seem right to start over with a new girl and a new address and go down the checklist all over again. 

 

_ (It wouldn't be like that, Frank. Karen's not trying to be Maria 2.0, and she won't try to recreate your old life. It's not starting over, it's moving forward.) _

  
  


It all seems fucking pointless anyway when he remembers that almost everything between them is unspoken.

  
  


******

  
  


His name is Pete Castiglione and he'll be damned if he let's anyone call him that. The suits in high places don't get to destroy his life and then act like it's a favor when they (sort of) clean the slate and send him off to tackle the world with a fancy new name. 

 

If Pete Castiglione gets him a life free of federal agents, that's who he'll be to them. 

 

But he'll always be Frank Castle, husband or not, father or not, Punisher or not. 

 

(Part of Karen's life or not.) 

  
  


******

  
  


It's a few weeks after everything is sorted out when it occurs to him that Karen doesn't know if he's okay or if he's even alive. 

 

And it's decision time. 

 

Disappear and descend into masochistic loneliness, or beg Karen to forgive him for being the dickiest of dickheads and try to live like a somewhat normal citizen.

 

(He realizes that Plan B relies heavily on Karen's cooperation, but he has a feeling that she's not the issue here.) 

 

Plan B it is. 

 

He waits at her favorite coffee shop holding one of her recent articles (some bullshit about universal morality that makes him wonder if it's passive aggression or a personal crisis), and when she walks in, he lets himself smile for a change.

 

He'll see where this goes.

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
